MONTREAL — Last month’s ********* ******* in Paris have caused a chill in travel from Canada to the French capital but the impact is expected to be temporary, tour operator Transat AT said Thursday.

“It’s normal but we don’t see that (continuing),” Transat CEO Jean-Marc Eustache told analysts on a conference call.

Eustache referred to a much greater chill after the Sept. 11, 2001, ********* ******* in the United States that caused the ******* to ground 25 per cent of its aircraft, reduce and cut salaries.

“It was the ***** that had ever happened in the ***** and (within six months) I was hiring everybody back,” Eustache said.

Transat declined to provide details about the size of the sales decline since the Nov. 13 co-ordinated ******* in Paris that ****** 130 and ******* hundreds more.

But it said the decline in bookings has mostly affected flights before Christmas. Bookings for flights early in the new year and for the coming summer are running ahead of last year.

********** said its flights between Canada and Paris are full over the holiday period but that some customers may have chosen to defer travel plans because of the ********* *******.

Before the Paris *******, Transat (TSX:TRZ) posted a strong summer season, earning $69.1 million in the three months ended Oct. 31, up from $30.6 million a year ago.

Excluding the impact of fuel-hedging, restructuring and asset impairments, Transat earned $54.8 million or $1.44 per diluted share. That was up from $49.4 million or $1.27 per share a year earlier and above analyst estimates of $1.23.

Revenues decreased 0.6 per cent to $839.2 million, as lower fuel costs triggered a decline in average selling prices.

“Our summer results at a time when global capacity was up seven per cent on the transatlantic market are the second-best we ever recorded and are part of Top 5 summer results all achieved in the in last six years,” chief financial officer Denis Petrin said.

For the full year ended Oct. 31, adjusted profits fell five per cent to $42.9 million or $1.11 per diluted share as revenues decreased about $200 million to $3.6 billion.

The company said it is hoping to improve its financial performance in the upcoming winter season, which runs until the end of April, after several years of ******, even as it expects operating costs to rise four per cent as the weaker Canadian dollar more than offsets the benefit from lower fuel costs.

Sales of packages to Transat’s large market in Cuba are holding up even though Cuban hotels have tied their prices to the U.S. dollar, resulting in increases of up to 15 per cent for Canadians because of the loonie’s depreciation.

Transat’s top three markets — Mexico, Dominican ******** and Cuba — account for 90 per cent of its traffic over the winter.